Buried Sorrow
by ReidsFanGirl18
Summary: The team goes on an unusual case in a small town in northern Wisconsin, unusual because the Unsub leaves their victims alive. The team soon discovers that the sophisticated ritual born out in the disposal sites holds a trail of clues to the Unsub's motives and in them Reid recognizes a profile which under different circumstances could have applied to himself.
1. Chapter 1

_August 22__nd__ 2003 – Resurrection Cathedral, Chicago IL_

_The large ornate church echoed with the cries and whimpers of literally hundreds of mourners. This was not at all surprising, after all, the deceased was a seven year-old boy, one who had been loved by so many and yet had his life cut so short. Doctors, nurses, friends, classmates, and relatives had come to say their goodbyes. _

_Just behind one of the three doors in the wall of icons, sat the priest. _

_Father Crainbeck was a small man with brown hair which was starting to turn gray and large blue eyes. In his full robe and vestments, he looked more like a child trying on his father's work clothes than a parish priest. He always hated presiding over funerals, particularly when he had personally known the departed. Though he counted himself among those who would miss this child dearly, his position called him to set aside his own grief and offer comfort and inspiration to the rest of the child's community. What could he possibly say to them? This was a tragedy no matter how one looked at it. This boy had fought for his life time and time again since the day he was born. Never had he known what it was really like to be a normal little boy, no, he could never let his guard down, nor could his family or it was all over. Yet somehow, even with everything he'd had to deal with, the boy had carried himself with a radiating kindness and a boundless optimistic spirit that had without a doubt sustained him through his own personal war against time and his own body. Only when Father Crainbeck had arrived at the hospital that final time, to deliver last rites, had he seen that spirit drained and the knowing smile gone from his young friend's face. This meek, and yet determined little warrior, had finally lost. It just didn't seem fair. What could he possibly say the people outside to curb the horror of it all? Several minutes went by before it came to him, a passage that seemed to give meaning and purpose to this saddest of days. So he came out and took his place behind the pulpit. _

_"Today we celebrate the life of a young boy, one who we all knew, and who we all loved. We celebrate his life, but we also mourn because he has departed from us, but we must take comfort in the fact that this precious child has gone home to his Father. Let us remember the words of Solomon from the book of Wisdom. "The Righteous man, though he may die early shall be at rest, for age is not honored for its length of existence, nor measured by the number of years. He was pleasing to God and loved by Him, and while living among sinners he was taken up, lest evil change his understanding, or deceit deceive his soul. Having been perfected in a short while he fulfilled long years, for his soul was plea_s_ing to the Lord, therefore he took him early out of the midst of evil." The priest said to the grieving crowd._

_But there was one who grieved for this child more than perhaps many of those there, who was not in attendance, someone whose pain had been cast aside… the aging priest had a way of sensing when there was someone missing, whether he knew them or not. _

August 23rd 2013, 9:00 AM

_Reid was having the nightmare again. The one were Maeve was shot in the head as her stalker killed herself… In reality Morgan had shot the stalker in the head without hurting Maeve. But the horror of what had almost happened that night still haunted him when he was alone. _

"Spencer! Wake up!" he heard a voice call out to him, then he felt a firm but gentle grip shake him. He opened his eyes to see Maeve standing over him. She smiled, he smiled back. Now that her stalker was finally out of their lives, they all but lived together apart from work, and it felt right.

"What happened?" He asked, as he looked around his apartment, trying to remember when exactly he had fallen asleep on the long, brown leather couch in the center of his small living room.

"We were watching a movie…and you fell asleep in the middle of it. After that I stayed and slept in the lounge chair." She reminded him.

He nodded in recognition. "Oh yeah…hey what time is it?"

"It's nine… are you late? If you are I'm sorry for not waking you sooner."

"Fortunately, since we just worked three cases non-stop without even going home, Hotch gave the whole team today and tomorrow off…unless we get called in."

"Good." She replied. "I hope the serial killers and kidnappers of the world can manage to behave themselves for the next two days." She said, he nodded and smiled exhaustedly at her.

Reid stood shakily and went to take a shower.

"Spencer…are you ok?"

"I'm fine…why do you ask?"

"Because I get the feeling you're not sleeping again…if the insomnia is back, you can tell me…"

"It's not the insomnia…" He said flatly, and that much was true… he was sleeping…but the ability to sleep wasn't the issue this time. "It's nothing, things have just been pretty non-stop the last month or so, it's running us all ragged, not just me." It still wasn't what was really going on with him but it wasn't exactly a lie either.

He was getting dressed when his cellphone rang with a text message from Garcia. They had a case.

He sighed, put the phone in his pocket, threw on a shirt, and tossed a tie over his shoulder. He was still buttoning the shirt when he came back out into the living room.

"I just got called in… it's about a couple of missing kids."

Maeve's eyes flashed with a mixture of pride and concern but she said nothing. Instead she just came over and hugged him and tied his tie…

"Just get them home and come back safely, alright?" she asked.

He nodded and kissed her, as always it was the kind of kiss that based on literature, most people dreamed about and if he hadn't been on his way out the door he would've been content to stay there forever, feeling the warmth of her embrace, the soft touch of her reddish brown hair against his skin… the electricity between them, but after a minute and a half, they parted. He grabbed his bags and left.


	2. Chapter 2

Reid: _"Without you in my arms, I feel an emptiness in my soul. I find myself searching the crowds for your face - I know it's an impossibility, but I cannot help myself." – Nikolas Sparks _

FBI HQ, 10:00 AM

The BAU team, Hotch, Rossi, Morgan, Reid, Blake, JJ, and Garcia gathered in the round table conference room.

"What's the case?" Reid asked.

Garcia stood up and took the remote in her hand.

"You my friends are off to the rural vacation spot known as Shell Lake Wisconsin; because four days ago, 7 year old Dylan Heartford disappeared from the parking lot of the local restaurant where he'd just had dinner with his family after his second day of second grade."

She pushed a button on the remote and a picture of a small boy with strawberry blond hair and large green eyes appeared on the screen.

"Four days?" Morgan exclaimed. "Most abducted children don't last more than 24 hours so why are we just hearing about this now?" he asked, the frustration in his voice obvious

"The locals tried to handle it themselves and he was found alive this morning, but it's the unusual manner in which the Unsub let him go that has led to us being called in." Garcia answered.

She showed them the crime scene photos of where the boy was found, he'd been wrapped loosely in a white linin shroud and laid out on a blanket. There were words on the shroud and on the brick wall to the side but neither message could be read from the photos.

"He was left in an alley next to another local restaurant called the Lake View Grill and Bar, it's directly across from the beach next to the local campground. He woke up after having been unconscious when he was left there and since this is a tiny, tiny town where everybody knows just about everybody it didn't take long for a passerby to recognize him and bring him home." Garcia continued.

"Just how small is the town Garcia?" Hotch asked.

"The most recent census data says there's only 1347 residents sir…"

"Wow, that is tiny…" Rossi agreed

Garcia nodded. "This place makes Forks Washington look like Chicago…"

"So whoever this Unsub is, they don't stand out, they'd probably have to be local to get away with this in a town so small." JJ pointed out.

"Not necessarily…" Reid said. "Shell Lake is a tourist destination all summer long, usually the camping season ends around the start of the school year but it's still close enough that we can't rule out travelers."

The others nodded in agreement.

"Based on the photos, it looks like whoever is doing this is carrying out some sort of burial ritual and yet leaving the victim alive…" Blake commented.

"What does it say on the shroud written in blue marker?" Reid asked

"Good question, it says: "I looked at your smiling face, you're so weak yet you had such strength" Garcia answered.

Reid and Blake looked at each other questioningly, both obviously confused.

"That's not from any literature that I know of…"

"I don't know where that comes from either."

"Well at the very least, given the care in the way the victim was laid out we know we're looking for a female Unsub." JJ said.

"One who's meticulous and methodical, that's elaborate…" Hotch added.

"If this woman went to all that trouble for a kid she let go she's either gonna circle back for him or go after another boy…" Morgan said.

"Which is why we need to get ahead of this fast, wheels up in thirty…" Hotch said and they all got up.

On the Plane: 11:00 AM

Garcia appeared on the screen of the laptop, as did a picture of a loop of knotted rope with a woven cross at the bottom where the two ends came together, making it look similar to a rosary but yet it clearly wasn't a rosary, in an evidence bag.

"Guy's this was wrapped around Dylan's hand while he was in the shroud… local LEOs don't know what it is or means and frankly neither do I… here's hoping you do…?"

"That's an odd looking Rosary…" JJ said.

"It doesn't look like any rosary I've ever seen." Rossi added.

"That's called a Chotki…" Reid said.

"What's a Chotki?" Morgan asked.

"A Chotki is a woven prayer rope that serves a similar purpose to a rosary but it's used in the Orthodox Church which has been separate from Catholicism since 1054. After the Western Roman Empire fell the Pope tried to increase his power in the church to keep Rome relevant and it led to a fight that ended in mutual excommunications by the patriarchs of Constantinople and Rome. Chotki are most often handcrafted by monks and nuns although some dedicated lay people have been known to make their own" Reid replied. He looked more closely at the photo for a split second and continued. "I highly doubt we're looking for a nun since most in monastic communities are more stable than this Unsub but she's definitely done this before…"

"What makes you say that?" JJ asked.

"Chotki are made by weaving string into very intricate knots and there are several standard lengths. This one is the longest, a 300 count and it's solid white. Novices almost always start by using two different colors of string because it's easier to see and work with, especially when you don't know what you're doing. To make a solid color one this long she'd have to be skilled and dedicated."

"So this isn't something she picked up overnight or got off the internet. Rossi said.

"Not a chance." Reid answered

Garcia spoke up. "Um…guys… another little boy just disappeared, 7 year old Samuel Miller."

The boy's photo appeared on the screen.

"He looks like he could be Dylan's twin brother…" Morgan said.

"These boys are surrogates for someone…the question is who." Blake added.

"When we land, Rossi and Blake you should interview Dylan, see if he can remember any details that will tell us more about the Unsub. Reid take Morgan and take a closer look at the original drop site, JJ you and I will talk to Sam's parents." Hotch said, they all nodded.


	3. Chapter 3

4:30 PM

As Reid and Morgan walked up to the first drop site they tried to imagine how the Unsub had placed Dylan there without getting caught. The alley was framed by a large wooden fence and the brick walls of the Lake View and the strip mall next to it.

"She probably did it at night…" Morgan suggested.

"I don't know, most of the shops around here don't open until nine and close before six, after that only the restaurants, bars, and the supermarket four doors down is even open on this street. Which means that from six PM until 9 AM the next morning there wouldn't be much foot traffic, and with the fence dividing the alley it wouldn't be that hard for the Unsub to go unnoticed.

They found a large, blue blanket with rocket ships and stars on it beneath the burial shroud which was still as it was when Dylan had woken up and crawled out of it.

Reid moved the shroud so that it was flat. That's when he saw it. A framed ancient looking painting of a man holding a scroll.

"Morgan, there's something else in here."

"What is it?"

Reid pulled it out slowly and looked at it. It was a medieval painting of a man holding a scroll.

"It…looks like a painting…"

"Of what? A dude holding a scroll?" Morgan asked.

"The style is definitely pre-renaissance… you know what? This is an Icon… we should have Rossi take a look at this, I'm not sure who this is meant to depict but the Unsub has been painstakingly deliberate so far in everything she's done. This saint's identity won't be an accident."

Morgan took a picture of the painting with his cell phone and sent it to Rossi.

Reid was already looking more closely at the area around the crime scene

"Morgan… here it is again back here on the fence…" and there it was, spray painted on the worn wooden fence that closed off the alley from the street behind it.

"Obviously this painting, whoever it's of, is something the Unsub wants us to notice…"

Meanwhile, at Dylan's house…

The Boy was clearly on edge, he was home now but he kept looking around as if he expected someone to pop out of the shadows. His eyes darted every few minutes from one side of the room to the other.

Blake sat across from him in the living room while Rossi stood in front of the front door off to the side.

"Wh-what do you want with me?" Dylan asked.

"It's ok, we're the good guys, we just want to talk to you… we need to know everything you can tell us about the person who took you… so that we can help them stop taking people." Blake said.

"Ook…" Dylan replied. The boy took a deep breath and his fear turned into calm determination.

"Now…can you describe for me…what happened when you were taken?" She asked.

"I was with my parents…we had just finished supper…it was starting to get dark… it was that time where it looks like the whole world is in the shade but there's still light in the sky, you know?"

Blake nodded, "Where were you? Were you at home? Or had you gone out to eat?"

"We went to Becky's…it's by the pottery place… We were leaving… I was falling behind because I was watching a bird I saw…"

"Then what happened?"

"Then…I felt someone grab me from behind… I didn't scream, because it didn't feel like I was being grabbed it was more like I was being hugged from behind. I looked up and I saw a woman in a long, loose black dress."

"Who was the woman? Did you know her? Had you seen her before?"

"No…at least…I don't think so…"

"Can you describe to me what she looked like?" She asked.

The boy nodded.

"She was short… for an adult I mean… she wasn't a kid, I could tell because her voice was too deep… but she was still short enough to pass for one… I don't know what color her hair was, because she wore a scarf over it that matched her dress."

"Ok…can you tell me what her face looked like?"

"No…she had another piece of fabric pinned to the scarf over her hair across her nose and mouth… But I can tell you she was pale…and she had brown eyes…"

"What did she do after she hugged you…?"

"She put a wash cloth over my mouth and held it there… then I fell asleep… When I woke up I was in a house…all the doors and windows were boarded up except for one door that didn't have a window, and it was locked tight…"

"Were you afraid of her?"

"Not really, I just didn't understand… she kept wanting to play with me."

"She played with you?" Rossi asked.

"Yeah, and she gave me food, good food, she let me pick anything I wanted…"

Rossi peered down at his phone and looked at the picture Morgan had sent him from the crime scene, then he went into the other room and called him back.

Back at the drop site….

Morgan's cell phone rang, he answered it.

"Hey Rossi, whatchya got?"

"That painting you found… it's an icon of the Prophet Daniel…"

"As in _Daniel and the Lion's Den_?" Morgan asked.

"Exactly…"

"Any Idea what it means to our Unsub?" Morgan asked.

"Not yet…"

Six hours later, the team regrouped in the police station. The painting of St. Daniel sat on the table along with the crime scene photos and the Chotki.

"So what do we know?" Hotch asked.

"We know that this Unsub chooses her victims according to a very specific type and that there's no sexual component here…which means that these victims must represent somebody she knows, given the fact that when she lets her victims go it's in a highly ritualistic way, almost as if she's burying them; it's probably someone she lost…"

"She could be a mother, maybe she had a son and lost him around the age the victims are now…" JJ said.

"I doubt that…" Blake said. "When I interviewed Dylan he described the Unsub as young, an adult but definitely younger than his mother. I'd say that more likely the Unsub's loss was that of a friend or a sibling…"

"It's rare though, for an Unsub in their early twenties to be this organized… should we be lookin at juvenile records?" Morgan asked.

"I don't think so Morgan, this Unsub has made a point to be non-violent to her victims… she knocks them out with chlorophorm of all things, she contains but doesn't harm them at all, while she has them…" Hotch said.

"Dylan said she even fed and played with him…" Blake added.

"Exactly… she's obviously intelligent, these abductions are sophisticated and well planned but I don't think that comes from past criminal experience. It's as if she's acting on pure desperation but she's still level headed enough to do a good job of it." Reid said.

"Did we get anything else from the painting you found? Were there any messages left on it?" Hotch asked.

"I was so confused by the painting itself that I forgot to look…" Morgan said apologetically.

He picked up the painting and took a closer look.

"Guys… there's something written on the back of here."

"What does it say?" Reid asked. Morgan handed the painting to JJ who was sitting closer to Reid.

"It says: "The Just man, though he may die early, shall be at rest. For the age that is honorable comes not with the passing of time, nor can it be measured in terms of years."

Reid jumped up and wrote those words on the glass board.

"What does it mean…?"

"Guy's this is from the bible…more specifically from the Deuterocanonical Old Testament. Protestants reject these books because they were never part of the Jewish canon and the Jews never accepted them because they thought the text held too closely to Christian Ideals… this text is from _Wisdom of Solomon _chapter four verses seven and eight…"

"What does all this tell us about the Unsub?" Hotch asked.

"Well the Unsub has obviously suffered a traumatic loss, likely the death of a boy who resembled the victims in age and appearance. Whoever that was, he and/or our Unsub probably comes from a religious background, definitely Christian, most likely Catholic or Orthodox…"

"And that she's meticulous about hiding her identity and yet is utterly non-violent towards her victims, to the point where she releases them alive."

"Guys I think I know what the Unsub is trying to do here!" Reid exclaimed.

"What?"

"We know that she lost someone… I think she's trying to re-enact his funeral! She thinks she didn't get to say goodbye the way that she needed to and that's probably true, but she also feels like he's been forgotten… this, all of it… is her desperate attempt at closure… every clue she's left us was intentional because she WANTS us to know who she lost."

"So if we find the boy these victims represent we should be able to find the Unsub." Blake said.

"Exactly."

"We can start fresh on that in the morning. It's late and we won't do these kids any good if we're too exhausted to concentrate." Hotch said.


	4. Chapter 4

Meanwhile, the unsub was making dinner for Sam. She was calm and quiet, happy even, but Sam was nervous around her. He didn't know what to think, she was nice enough but she'd taken him away and wouldn't let him leave… and she kept calling him by the wrong name.

"W-who are you…?" the little boy asked.

"Oh don't be silly Matthew, you know who I am… It's been awhile, I'll give you that… too long, way too long…"

"I don't know who you are, and my name's not Matthew, it's Sam…"

August 25th 2013: 7:00 AM

The team had just gathered in the conference room at the Washburn County Sharif's department when they heard that Sam Miller had been dumped behind Becky's restaurant the exact same way as Dylan had been near the Lake View.

Twenty minutes later the team was at the latest drop site.

"This is almost identical to what we saw yesterday at the other location, white shroud, message on it written in fabric marker…"

"What does the message on the shroud say this time?" JJ asked.

Reid walked toward the shroud to get a closer look.

"You'd take one glance around this place, you made the best of everything. You give me hope in spite of everything, you showed me love even in so much pain." He read.

"Sounds to me like she's describing the one she lost and talking to him from beyond the grave at the same time." Blake said.

"Hey guys…take a look at this…" JJ called out… the others came and on the side of the building was yet another spray painted icon. Reid immediately went back to the shroud and dug out a framed painting that was an exact match to the one on the wall.

"Is there a bible verse written on the back this time?" Blake asked.

Reid nodded. "It says: But rather understanding is the aged crown of men and an unsullied life the attainment of old age, he who pleased God was loved, he who lived among sinners was transported, snatched away lest wickedness pervert his mind or deceit beguile his soul…" "This is a continuation of the text written on the back of the last painting…"

"Do you know who it's depicting?" Hotch asked.

"Let me see…" Rossi said, Reid handed it to him.

The painting depicted a young boy wearing red robes and a crown.

"This isn't a saint I recognize…" He answered and handed it back to Reid who then took a closer look.

"Guys I think this is Alexi Romanov, he was canonized along with his family as a Holy Passion Bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church after the fall of the Soviet Union… now the nearest Orthodox church from here is seventy-three miles away which says to me that not only is this Unsub most likely genuinely Orthodox but that this town must mean something to her. If it didn't then she'd be acting out her funeral ritual closer to the church…"

"So she's either local, used to be, or at the very least has some sort of history here." Hotch said.

"You know…this could be where the Unsub's loss occurred." Blake proposed.

They called Garcia

"Ask and ye shall receive, what do you need?" she asked.

"Garcia, we need you to compile a list of children who died in Shell Lake and the surrounding communities in the last fifteen years, confine it to boys between the ages of five and ten who grew up either Catholic or Orthodox Christian."

"12…"

"Are any of them blond or redheads?" JJ asked.

"uh…3…"

"One of the saints depicted in the icons we found at the crime scene was a hemophiliac so the boy we're looking for most likely died of natural causes, probably from life-long medical issues."

"Sorry guys, no dice. All these kids were either drowned or crashed into by boats while swimming."

"Alright, widen your search to the entire Midwest…" Hotch ordered.

"That's another fifty-six names…"

"How many of them are named Daniel?" Morgan asked.

"Surprisingly none…"

"It's not uncommon for Catholic parents to have their child's patron saint be his or her middle name Garcia, see if any of them have Daniel for a middle name… then see if any of those either were born or died on or around the day of the first abduction." Rossi said.

"Yes! Just one…"

"We found him." Blake said.

"Who was he Garcia?" Hotch asked.

"His name was Matthew Daniel Ethridge, born to Don and Mindy Ethridge in Dixon Illinois in May of 1996…he was raised Irish Catholic, he had strawberry-blond hair and blue-green eyes… and…oh…" she cut off.

"Oh…?" Reid asked.

"This poor little guy…he was born with a really, really bad heart defect and had to have three surgeries in the first year to correct it… then…to put icing on a very bitter cake he was also missing his spleen and lived with a severe and irreparable immune deficiency… he ended up dying of an opportunistic infection. He was admitted to Christ Children's Hospital in Chicago but his body was so defenseless that the antibiotics couldn't get the job done. His body shut down piece by piece until he finally died and was taken off of life support on August 19th 2003… the kid was barely seven years old…"

The entire team flashed looks of grief and horror at each other.

"Did his family have any ties to Shell Lake Garcia?" Hotch asked.

"No but I'm cross checking this town with everyone who came his funeral… I'll call you back…" she said before hanging up.

"So the first victim was abducted on the tenth anniversary… we all know what anniversaries, especially significant ones can do to survivors but something tells me there's still another stressor that made the Unsub start doing this…" Morgan said.

"We need to give a profile…" Hotch said.

The Local Police Station 9:00 AM

"The Unsub, or unknown subject we're looking for is a woman. Witness descriptions from the children she has released put her in her early twenties and this combined with the sophistication and planning she puts into these abductions suggests above average intelligence." Blake said.

"She's reenacting the funeral of a boy who died just over ten years ago, she's non-violent but she abducts these children not only because she needs them for the ritual but because she wants their friends and family to feel the pain she did back then." Morgan continued.

"It is our theory that she felt very alone at this point in her life and that the tenth anniversary brought all of that back to the surface. She saw a child who greatly resembled her friend and this triggered a psychological combination known as dissociative regression, meaning that her grief became so overwhelming that she had a partial break from reality; one in which she believes her friend is still alive. Though it is still unclear whether her own mental development has regressed back to that time or whether she has convinced herself that her friend has been brought back from the dead. She needs to abduct boys who resemble him so she can make the fantasy more realistic." Hotch added.

"However, she reaches a point where reality sinks in and she realizes that the boy she has with her is not really who she thinks he is, nor an adequate substitute, she most likely also feels remorse when she realizes that she has exacted her feelings of fear and grief onto the abductee's family and friends so she lets them go, disposing of them in a highly ritualistic manner indicative of the funeral she herself, most likely, did not attend. We believe that this is an attempt at some level of emotional closure, the lack of which is what brought all of this on in the first place. She will most likely come quietly once a repor is established and the best way to do that will be to simply show her that she is not alone. She's made it more than clear that she is highly religious but unlike other cases we've seen where religion is part of the equation, hers has not been twisted or cherry picked. She seems to be following it to the letter and the moral statutes that accompany her beliefs may well be what is keeping her grounded enough not to harm her victims." Reid explained.

"Thank you." Hotch told the officers.

The briefing ended.

A few minutes later Hotch's phone rang.

"What do you have Garcia?"

"The Unsub is Anastasia Bradstone… but everything she signed suggest she goes by Ana. she's another heart defect survivor, her parents and Matthew's parents were in the same support group for families dealing with birth defects of the heart-related variety and she's vacationed in Shell Lake every summer since she was a little girl. She and Matt were best friends, I found her page on , it's a… writing website… all her poems are about Matt and I gotta tell ya this is some of the most profound and depressing stuff I've ever read."

"Do we have an address Garcia?"

"I'm still working on that…her home address is still her parent's house which is in Rockford IL almost six hours away… right now I'm checking houses for short-term rent in Washburn County…"

"Where did she stay when she used to come here as a child Garcia?" Reid asked.

"Uh looks like for the last 7 years the family rented a house on the lakefront… it was bought from the landlord by Ana's grandmother a year ago and she just died this past July…"

"The grandmother's death must be what sent her over the edge…" Rossi said.

"Send us the address Garcia" Hotch ordered.

"Done."

The Lakefront House 11:00 AM

There in the front yard was a young woman in a long, light blue linin dress wearing a blue and white veil over her hair.

"How do we want to do this?" Morgan asked.

"If she feels cornered she'll shut down… I think we should send one person toward her, alone and unarmed… the rest of us will back that person up." JJ suggested.

"I'll do it…" Reid said.

"You sure?"

"Guys… I know what she's going through and I think I can get her to open up and calm down…"

"Ok, do what you have to do…"

Reid approached her while she was sitting in the yard, weaving another Chotki.

"Ana…" he said. She looked up.

"My name is Spencer Reid, I'm with the FBI…"

"Stop where you are. Don't come any closer. I'm not a bad person… but I have to do this…"

"No Ana…you don't…"

"Yes I do!" She yelled. "I wasn't at his funeral! From day one I was expected to act like nothing was wrong…forced to pretend that nothing happened! I wasn't allowed to miss him, I wasn't allowed to say goodbye… That night, th-the night before he lost brain function I layed there in my room and I prayed and I cried and I was so scared and so alone… and you know what? They. Didn't. Care."

"Who didn't care Ana? Who did this to you? Who made you feel this way?"

"My Parents! They went to the funeral without me… they hid the few photos of us that I had… it took years to get those back… They didn't care…"

"I'm sure they did care Ana… I'm sure your parents were grieving at the same time you were… they were just as sad as you were that he was gone…and you wanna know what I think? About why they did what they did…?"

"Shoot…"

"They were sad too…so sad… that they didn't know how to deal with their own feelings let alone help you through yours… they were upset and they weren't thinking clearly enough to consider your personality when they decided how to respond. They love you…they just made a mistake…it was a big one…and it hurt you… but it was an honest mistake…"

"How could you know? That night was Hell! It was Hell and they acted like it never happened!"

"I know it was… I know and I understand that…believe me… a few months ago I was there… someone I loved was in trouble and I felt powerless to stop it… I thought I was going to lose her…"

"And did you?"

"No…"

"Good, but then you really can't relate…"

"Yes I can because I know now firsthand how desperate and scared you were. Come with me…and I will make sure you get what you need to heal so that you don't have to do this anymore…"

"Promise?"

"I swear to God…"

"I don't believe you… you'll say whatever you have to, to put me in handcuffs."

"That's not true…yes I need you to come with me… and yes, the police might cuff you… but we're not going to hurt you… you didn't hurt anybody, I don't think you can. But you need help, and if you come with me, we can help you…so let us…" He begged.

At that Ana's face softened and she came forward, put the unfinished Chotki around her neck, and walked over to Reid with her hands in the air.

When she reached him, Reid put a hand on her shoulder and walked her over to the rest of the team; she was arrested, but the families of the boys she abducted refused to press formal charges against her and with only the state's case against her remaining, it was likely that she'd get off with a year's probation and time served along with court-mandated grief counseling.

As the team was packing up, the local detective came over and said that Ana wanted to speak with Reid alone.

"Ana…what's going on?" He asked.

"I just wanted to thank you… before you left. You're right… I never meant to hurt anyone, and I never purposely would. But Matt's death, losing him… it screwed me up big time… I never expected anyone to understand what I did, sometimes I'm not sure that I understand it. Grandma was the one person who understood, you know? I was just a kid then, but she understood that I was old enough, to love him, to miss him, to grieve now that he was gone… she accepted that I couldn't be silenced into grabbing on to a world without him in it, acting as if he was never there… that it was only hurting me, the longer everyone tried to make me pretend that nothing happened…" She told him.

"Ana I have a degree in psychology, in fact most of us do, and I gotta tell ya, no one who knew anything at all about psychology, would've put you through what you went through… There are plenty of therapies, methods for helping kids deal with a loss like that and ignoring it is not one of them… What you've experienced is called disenfranchised grief. When someone dies, all the support tends to be focused on the immediate family, sometimes, especially when the deceased is a kid, their friends tend to fall by the wayside… It's a natural course of events but that doesn't make it right, in fact many times it proves to be the most psychologically damaging form of grief there is."

"Well yeah, you can be surrounded by people who love you, and still feel completely alone, because no one knows, and no one cares, much less wants to know how you feel. They figure you were too young or to distant for your bond to matter…"

"And you just told me that your Grandmother was the one person who did care and did want to know, as far as that goes… I think that when you lost her, you just wanted him back and you wanted to be heard…"

"Even more than Matt, and trust me, that is saying something, she was everything to me… I don't understand, I barely know you and yet you understand me better than people I've been around all my life… You can spout all the academic profiler talk you like but I know that it goes deeper than that. You understand because you lived it, maybe not the person you love dying part, but that night I spent laying there terrified and powerless, begging God not to take him away, that much you can relate to. That's how you profiled me, wasn't it? You figured it out from the clues I left, recognized your own situation in mine, and realized that you'd find me by finding him, by understanding what happened to him and who his friends were."

"You loved him."

"He was like my little brother…"

"That's why you left the Icon of Alexi Romanov at one of the crime scenes isn't it? Your name is Anastasia, the same name as Alexi's closest older sister…"

"Well yes but, Anastasia's not my birth name, Anastasia Romanov is my patron saint, I wasn't raised Orthodox, I converted a few years ago. I chose Anastasia because from all my research into the Romanov's Alexi began to remind me more and more of Matthew, so I chose his closest sister and best friend as my patron. I picked someone who, in this life, knew what it's like to love someone who's here on borrowed time. I changed my legal name to match my new name about a year ago." She explained, then she sighed sadly before continuing. "I called you in here to thank you, but also because I want you to do something for me."

"I'll do everything I can to make sure you're not flagged as a danger to anyone when you're not."

"Well thank you, I appreciate that but that's not what I'm talking about."

"Then what is it?" Reid asked, confused.

"You mentioned before that you almost lost someone…"

"My girlfriend…"

"My guess is, that whatever almost happened to her is why you understood me so quickly…and that even though you saved her, what almost happened still bothers you, a lot."

"It does sometimes, yeah…"

"Word of advice… You didn't lose her, so act like it. You two have a chance at something that was stolen from Matthew and me…a chance at a long, happy life together, don't waste it."

"You know, you're pretty wise for a 19 year old…"

"19 and ½…and this is experience talking…I'd give almost anything, do almost anything, for just one more day with him…I think the last week more than proved that…that can never be…but if I've learned anything from the last ten years it's that regrets and fear don't move you forward, they either send you back or melt your shoes into the sidewalk and freeze you there. Don't let them."

"I won't…"

"Good."

Ana: _"I dreamed a dream in time gone by, when hope was high, and life worth living. I dreamed that love would never die. I dreamed that God would be forgiving, when I was young and unafraid, these dreams were made and used, and wasted. There was no ransom to be paid, no song unsung, nor wine untasted. But the tigers come at night, with their voices soft as thunder, as they tear your hope apart, as they turn your dream to shame. He spent the summer by my side, he filled my days with endless wonder. He took my childhood in his stride, but he was gone when autumn came. And still I dream he'll come to me, that we will live the years together. But there are dreams that cannot be, and there are storms we cannot weather." – Les Misérables _


End file.
